GLENDALE, Ariz. — All around them, teammates tried to get out of there as quickly as they could.

Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas sat side-by-side on black folding chairs in front of their lockers, still in their uniforms as teammates dressed swiftly. They slumped forward with their elbows resting on their thighs and stared emptily ahead at nothing in particular.

The Seahawks knew they should've won this game. Sherman and Thomas' faces made that clear. They were a half yard shy of beating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX, but quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception that sealed the Patriots' 28-24 victory. That the play came despite having one of the best running backs in the NFL in Marshawn Lynch raised some questions about the play call.

"I'm a little bit surprised," Sherman said. "It was an unfortunate play. Their guy made a heck of a play and that's all you can ask for."

Seattle's locker room was dumbfounded. Players sat in silence. They didn't know what to do. Many of them knew they should still be on the field, blue and green confetti cascading down. Instead, the Patriots celebrated their fourth championship of the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era just a few hundred feet away.

"We had it," linebacker Bruce Irvin said. "I don't understand how you don't give it to the best back in the league, on not even the one-yard line. We were on the half-yard line and we throw a slant. I don't know what the offense had going on or what they saw. I just don't understand."

Said receiver Doug Baldwin: "All of us are surprised. In that moment with 20 seconds left on the clock and we still had a timeout. I felt like, from what I understand, we should take a shot and still have another down. If we ran the ball and didn't get in, then we had to stop the clock and it would limit our abilities to run or pass. I don't know. I am just trying to come up with an explanation for it. I really don't know."

"It's just because of the match-ups," Carroll said. "At this time it seems like over-thinking, but they have goal line guys on, we have three wide receivers, a tight end and one back in that situation and they've got extra guys at the line of scrimmage. So we don't want to waste a run play on that."

Twenty minutes after almost every other player had left the locker room, Sherman and Thomas hadn't moved. They sat there, stunned.

Carroll walked by, placed a hand on each of his players' backs and leaned in. Carroll spoke to his players for a couple of minutes. When he was done, Carroll patted them on the back in support and walked away. Tears welled in his eyes.

"Well, it came down to one play," Sherman said. "We gave ourselves a chance to win .That's all you can ask for. At the end of the day, if we didn't give ourselves a chance to win and play up to our potential, then you can be more disappointed. For us, we gave ourselves the chance to win the ball game, and then that play at the end."

This loss will sting for months. But even in the face of one of the most disappointing defeats in recent history, the players stress that better days lie ahead.

"We expect to be here every year," Sherman said. "That's the kind of team we have. That's the dedication every year. We'll see how it goes."

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) celebrates a touchdown during the second quarter against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium. Joe Camporeale, USA TODAY Sports